Sunday, May 28, 2017

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said on 27 May 2017 that it
is planning to contest assembly elections next year in Rajasthan and Madhya
Pradesh (combined population: over 14 crore), but is facing a “shortage of
money”.

“Party leaders said the coffers are dry after the
campaigns in Punjab and Delhi,” said a report in The Indian Express.

“Our opponents are going after all our donors, even
those who donate Re 1. It has become very tough,” a leader said.

Interesting!

Imagine the manpower and infrastructure that AAP’s “opponents”
will need in “going after” millions of rickshaw-wallahs, hawkers, clerks,
teachers, nurses and other ordinary folk who want to slip Rs one or two or more
into the hands of a local party guy who is working hard to bring ‘Swaraj’ in
India.

The AAP calls itself the “only hope” in a country of
1.3 billion people of a corruption-free government, having presence in all
states and having already contested Lok Sabha or assembly elections in great
many of them.

The party had said its membership crossed one crore as
far back as in January 2014 and continues to claim big public support, not to
mention actual votes that were allegedly discounted because of tampering of electronic
voter machines (EVMs).

An AAP leader was quoted in The Indian Express report
as saying that the party has held “big meetings” in 27 of the 50 districts of
Madhya Pradesh (population: 7.3 crore) where it intends to contest assembly
elections next year.

Keeping in mind that the AAP has so far won handsome
electoral support and parliamentary/assembly seats in Punjab and Delhi with
combined population of about 4.7 crore, here is a simple calculation.

A supporter base of just two crore across the entire
country, contributing a mere Rs 10 a month each should put a cool Rs 20 crore into AAP’s
coffers every month.

So where are those millions of Aam Aadmis who AAP
claims view it as their only hope of a corruption-free India and where are those
crores of rupees they should have been contributing to the cause of ‘Swaraj’?

We haven’t yet begun to consider the big donations
such as Rs two crore that a Delhi-based businessman Mukesh Kumar claimed he
donated to the AAP (which according to sacked minister Kapil Mishra was an alibi for illicit payments flowing into the party).

And we haven’t yet begun to consider the big
donations AAP receives from abroad, let alone the question as to why on earth an
‘Aam Aadmi’ party has to rely, like the corrupt ‘Khas Aadmi’ parties, on foreign
funding to get going.

How does AAP reconcile its claim that it has handsome
public support with its claim that it has been running out of funds?

What became of the promise that millions of Aam Aadmis
can very well support a political party keeping on the straight and narrow?

What became of Arvind Kejriwal’s publicly voiced fears
that foreign powers can any day buy parliamentary seats in India and control
government?

Isn’t one justified in giving credence to Kapil
Mishra’s allegation that visits by AAP leaders to the US, Canada, Germany,
Russia, and other countries hold deep secrets?

Doesn’t AAP’s conduct so far also go some distance in
explaining the alleged scams in Delhi government led by Chief Minister Kejriwal?

By the way, The Indian Express report also says: “The
list of donors or donation trends have been missing from the AAP website for
almost a year.”

The AAP leader the reporter spoke to “did not
explain why donation trends are not being made public.”

As far back as in March 2011, I had written about Tarun Seem sent "on deputation" from the central government to work for an entirely fraudulent entity called PHFI.

http://kbforyou.blogspot.in/2011/03/manmohan-singhs-public-private.htmlPHFI is a huge fraud perpetrated in the name of "public-private partnership" by then prime minister Manmohan Singh, giving Gates Foundation illegal power and influence in India's health policy administration.

I wrote in 2011-12 quite a few articles about PHFI, including the one linked below.

I believe Gupta and his gang of McKinsey fraudsters and side-kick Reddy had identified a number of pliable central government bureaucrats, including Tarun Seem, to work "on deputation" in their fraudulent organisation called PHFI.

Interestingly, prior to joining PHFI, Tarun Seem had been working in scam-tainted National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) which by the way later became a lucrative source of public funds for PHFI.

Friday, May 26, 2017

Here are some of my recollections of having worked
in the past with Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, and Kapil
Mishra, who has recently been sacked from Kejriwal's cabinet.

They show that Kejriwal is dishonest in having Kapil
branded a 'BJP agent'.

Kejriwal's own willing association with BJP goes
back at least to the summer of 2009.

This article also shows that Kejriwal has turned his back on 'open meetings' that were to realise the 'Swaraj' that he
promised to the people.

I had first met Kapil Mishra in July 2009 as a
member of Arvind Kejriwal’s team participating in one of a series of Mohalla
Sabha meetings we were helping organize in Delhi as part of our 'Swaraj'
campaign.

These
meetings were being organized in cooperation with two councillors of Municipal
Corporation of Delhi (MCD) both of whom belonged to the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP).

One of themwas Kapil's motherAnnapurna
Mishra who represented Sonia Vihar ward in the MCD; the other was Hari
Shankar Kashyap who represented Trilokpuri.

I remember sometime in late June 2009 Kejriwal had
given me and other members of his team the "good news" that “two BJP
councillors have agreed to take part in the Mohalla Sabha experiment”.

“The first meeting will take place on 5th July in
Sonia Vihar ward,” he beamed as his long effort to arrange a trial of the
concept of Mohalla Sabha was finally making some headway.

'Open Meetings'

I had then been working full time in Kejriwal team
for about eight months.

Over this period, we’d been engaged in fleshing out
the idea of Mohalla Sabha which was Kejriwal’s take on ‘Area Sabha’
provided in the Model Nagara Raj Bill 2008 that the Centre had proposed to the
states to allow greater citizen participation in municipal governance.

We’d held discussions with S.C. Behar (former chief secretary of Madhya
Pradesh), Medha Patkar, S.R. Hiremath (a Karnataka-based environmentalist),
Anna Hazare, Ravi Chopra (People's Science Institute) and other knowledgeable
people in drafting our own legislative proposals as to how local citizens’
assemblies can directly take decisions that affect their lives.

Kejriwal believed then that khuli baithakein (open
meetings) of local citizens with their representatives would not only enable
them to detect corruption in government, but also give them a measure of
control over land acquisition and 'development' projects that had been riding
roughshod over their rights.

Such open meetings of Gram Sabhas and Mohalla
Sabhas sparing no one from scrutiny was an essential component of what
Kejriwal called his idea of 'Swaraj'.

(He has since used that catchword to expand his
political base. The topis that members of Kejriwal cult wear bear the
slogan: 'Mujhe Chahiye Swaraj'.)

He loved to cite commonly reported cases of PWD
contractors using substandard material or forged bills to siphon off public
money in explaining how local citizens' assemblies would be able to expose
corruption.

A beautiful example of the kind of projects Kejriwal
the 'Swaraj' campaigner cited would be the drainage project along NH-44 in
Delhi in which Kejriwal the Chief Minister has now been accused of having
favoured his relative Surender Bansal!

"The Mohalla Sabha shall have the power to issue
'utilization certificate' only after which final payment can be made to
the contractor," Kejriwal the 'Swaraj' campaigner wrote in his legislative
proposals.

Kejriwal the Chief Minister is, of course, a
different kettle of fish.

According to an India Today report,
he allowed his PWD department to clear Rs two crore worth of forged bills,
pending completion of the project, to his own relative!

The department is headed by minister Satyendra Jain
whom former minister Kapil Mishra has accused of
having handed Rs two crore in cash to Kejriwal the Chief Minister!

No wonder Kejriwal of 2017 won't even utter the word khuli
baithakein, let alone have one conducted.

He now transacts his business behind closed doors
and members of his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are frequently warned not to
speak off message in public.

BJP Councillor, Her Son

The first Mohalla Sabha meeting that I attended took
place on 12 July 2009 in Badarpur Khadar village of Sonia Vihar ward of
north-east Delhi.

It was the second Mohalla Sabha meeting in the ward
represented by BJP councillor Annapurna Mishra.

The first meeting had taken place a week ago in a different
neighbourhood.

I was there along with Kejriwal and quite a few
other members of his team.

Kejriwal had tasked me with the job of writing a
detailed report of the meeting which we were to share with the media.

(The report that I filed then is pasted at the
bottom of this article.)

Councillor Mishra was, of course, present there
along with her son Kapil and an MCD official.

I found her to be a short woman with clear but slow,
deliberate, Neta-like manner of speaking.

Kapil had a contrasting personality; he appeared
dynamic, resourceful and outspoken.

That meeting is, of course, a testimony to
Kejriwal's long association with Kapil and his mother.

There was no AAP then and no chief ministerial and
ministerial posts to be had.

Kejriwal was then very happy to have been associated
with a BJP councillor and her son.

And he continued to be happy to have been
associated with Kapil after AAP was launched in November 2012 and subsequently
won the election to form the government in Delhi -- right through his
vicious turf war with BJP and NDA-II government.

That is until 06 May 2017 when suddenly Kapil
Mishra, one of Kejriwal's closest cabinet colleagues, became a "BJP
agent".

The Kejriwal cult has since been trying hard to
portray Kapil a gaddar (traitor) and to "establish" his
"collusion" with BJP in a "larger conspiracy" to finish off
the AAP.

If association with BJP is all that's required to
establish a person as a "BJP agent" and a gaddar to
Kejriwal cult, then Kejriwal himself would be deemed a "BJP agent" at
least since the summer of 2009 when he joined hands with BJP councillors Mishra
and Kashyap in conducting Mohalla Sabhas.

Knowing Kapil Mishra

Being in Badarpur Khadar was quite an experience.

The village did feel like a village (to me, admittedly,
rather pleasantly), as if in the middle of nowhere with no pucca roads,
electricity, school, etc.

So there was plenty for the local people to talk
about and for councillor Mishra to respond to.

I remember councillor Mishra making a pretty
clear statement at the meeting of her submission to the principle that 'people
are the boss and their wish is my command'.

Her son Kapil appeared smart. I learnt later that he
ran an NGO called Youth for Justice.

I can't quite recall if it was that Mohalla
Sabha meeting or the next (on 19 July 2009 at another location of the same
ward) when I had an opportunity to speak directly with Kapil.

I remember him talking passionately about how
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NAREGA) had been harming agriculture
because workers no longer had to do any any real farm work to earn basic income.

I also heard him asserting - primarily with
reference to MCD - that there was absolutely no shortage of funds for any
development work; the challenge was only to spend them sensibly.

Kapil seemed to complement his mother's cautious and
deliberate manner of dealing with a matter at hand, intervening
resourcefully whenever a meeting ran up against practical problems.

A few of these Mohalla Sabha meetings in
2009 was all I saw of Kapil then.

Those meetings had either stopped happening or were
few and far between by December 2009 when I left the Kejriwal team.

I can't say for sure what became of Mohalla
Sabha experiment after that point in time, but I don't think it made much
headway.

I heard once again of Kapil Mishra in the summer of
2010 when I received an emailed invitation to the release of a book on
Commonwealth Games scam that he had authored.

Anti-corruption Movement

Towards the end of 2010, I was receiving emails
suggesting Kejriwal was trying to rally people round in support of enacting a Lokpal (ombudsman)
against corruption.

By February 2011, I felt drawn towards the swelling
anti-corruption mobilization and attended a huge rally in Ramleela Maidan in
Delhi along with my wife.

I was also one of the Anshan-kaaris (hunger
strikers) at Anna Hazare-led dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi in
April 2011 whereby we were demanding that the central government set up a
committee including peoples' representatives to decide a draft of a law to
enact Lokpal.

I don't recall meeting Kapil during that time.

My next and the last meeting with Kapil was sometime
around September 2012, not long after the anti-corruption movement had been
called off by the committee steering it.

That meeting took place at a public park in
Connaught Place and was attended by me, Ashim Jain (of India Friends
Association or IFA), Diwan Singh (a Delhi-based environmentalist), Kapil
Mishra, and someone who was known to have been the main social media mobilizer
for India Against Corruption (IAC) until he fell out of favour with Kejriwal.

I had been disappointed by the way the
anti-corruption movement was brought to an end in July-August 2012 by Kejriwal
and his coterie.

I was quite disturbed later to find out that the
last round -- pompously billed a 'do or die' battle in which Kejriwal and
Manish Sisodia sat on Anshan at Jantar Mantar rather than Anna Hazare
-- had been pre-scripted by Kejriwal team to end in winding up of the movement
and the announcement of a "political alternative".

It was a fraud to pre-decide the outcome of a
supposedly 'peoples' movement' by some of those who were trusted with steering
it, I thought then and still do.

Since the last round of the movement at Jantar
Mantar became the basis for launching the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), this so called
"political alternative" has been tainted from its inception with
falsehood and deception.

That was also what I said at our meeting at
Connaught Place.

Kapil Mishra then was in no mood to take seriously
any such criticism of Kejriwal and of what for him would soon become a
launching of a 'political' career.

After others had left, Ashim Jain, who had been
working at the movement's headquarters, confirmed to me that all insiders did
indeed know that the movement had been pre-decided to end in a certain way.

AAP Years

Fast forward to February 2015 when AAP bagged a
landslide victory in Delhi assembly elections and Kapil was given a place in
the cabinet headed by Kejriwal, the second-time Chief Minister.

An important memory that I have of Kapil the
minister is the way he led the hounding at Kejriwal's behest of
Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan and others out of the National Executive of
the AAP in March 2015.

I don't think highly of Yadav and Bhushan (think of
their role in the "political alternative" drama in July-August 2012),
but I feel Kapil Mishra acted totally as a henchman of Kejriwal at that time.

He now confronts the same situation, having been
sidelined from the government and the party by the same coterie that he was
once a member of.

Since 06 May 2017, he seems to have been discovering
each day more and more evidence of what I have always believed - that AAP
suffers from a congenital defect that not only has never been discussed in the
mainstream media but was also sought to be covered up.

That congenital birth is the drama that was enacted
in July-August 2012 to launch the 'political' careers of Kejriwal and his
coterie, throwing ideas of 'democracy' and 'Swaraj' out of the window.

However, I admire the moral courage that Kapil
Mishra has shown in showing up the corruption of the Kejriwal government
since being chucked out of the government and the party.

-------

(The following is the report of the first Mohalla Sabha meeting I attended on 12 July 2009 and filed the next day.

It may give readers an idea of what Mohalla Sabhas are all about.)

Councillor Mishra kickstarts participatory democracy
in a Delhi
village that no one has heard of!

Conducts second Mohalla Sabha meeting in
a week

New Delhi,
July 13: Badarpur Khadar is a village that you can’t locate on Eicher city map.
It’s not anywhere near Badarpur. It’s a village that hardly any Delhiite has
ever heard of.

With a population of about 1500, it’s a village that has no
electricity, no school, no ration shop, no dispensary, no roads, no latrines,
absolutely no sign of what has come to be recognized as ‘development’.

Approachable from Pushta Road, a few km into Tronica City
(Ghaziabad district of UP), Badarpur Khadar, a part of Sonia Vihar municipal
ward of north-east Delhi, took on Sunday, July 12, its first hopeful steps into
‘participatory democracy’’ – people directly and collectively taking decisions
and telling their local representative what they want.

In an open ‘Mohalla Sabha’ meeting with Annapurna Mishra,
Sonia Vihar Councillor, over 100 men and women of Badarpur Khadar decided they
wanted a school, ration cards for every household, ID cards for every adult,
widow and old-age pension for 8 identified women, and a pucca road from ‘Babu’s
home to Jafru’s home’.

“From today, you will directly dictate the development of
your village. Since you have voted me into power, it’s your right to dictate
what you want. I’ll try my best to carry out your decisions,” Mishra told the
gathering.

She had about Rs 50 lakh in councillor’s funds which would
be spent according to the will of the people, said Mishra, attending her second
Mohalla Sabha meeting in one week. She had conducted a similar meeting in a
different area of her ward on July 5.

A ‘Mohalla Sabha’ meeting is an open meeting of citizens of
an area or colony of a municipal ward with their councillor and some local MCD
officials. The meeting allows local citizens to discuss their problems and
collectively decide what they want. The councillor and the officials are
expected to listen and commit themselves to carrying out the collective
decisions.

Mishra is one of a growing list of MCD councillors who have
been submitting themselves to the principle of participatory democracy by
conducting Mohalla Sabha meetings.

In last three weeks, Mishra and Hari Shankar Kashyap, Trilok
Puri councilor, have conducted 2 Mohalla Sabha meetings each in their wards.

“This village has never had any school. Most children don’t
go to school. A few of them go to schools in Loni or Mirpur in UP. So a school
should be our first priority,” Mahabir Singh, a respected local, told Mishra as
Subhash Pandey, an MCD official, took notes.

A 10 bigha plot of
land belonging to Gram Samaj (common land) had been identified for the school
during Mishra’s earlier visit to the village; the school project was going to
be her first priority, the councilor responded.

“I’ll go to the Town Hall with the school project. In the
meanwhile I’ll also see if MCD could temporarily start teaching here in rooms
that can be spared by some households,” added Mishra, as the discussion moved
on to ration cards.

“Earlier, almost 50 percent of families had ration cards. We
used to go to the ration shop in Burari. Since then most people were either
made to surrender their cards or have lost them,” said Soopanji, an elderly
local, pointing out that Badarpur Khadar was made a part of Sonia Vihar only
some years ago.

It was decided then that a team of local volunteers would
collect documents from all households and complete the formalities for getting
their ration cards made.

“About 30 per cent of the adult residents also don’t have
voter ID cards,” said Rajendra Prasad, a local daily wage labourer.

The process of registering voters would start from July 15
and madam councillor would make sure that the SDM did not forget to send their
team to the village, Kapil, Mishra’s, son who was helping her mother conduct
the meeting, responded as the councillor nodded her agreement.

Except for a small road that was recently made pucca with
cement, Badarpur Khadar has no pucca roads.

Soopanji and one Hashim Ali proposed that the path from
“Babu’s home to Jafru’s home’ should first be turned into a pucca road. After
others voiced their agreement, MCD’s Pandey conferred with the two to confirm
the location of the proposed road and took notes.

The village also doesn’t have anything in the name of a
dispensary or primary health centre (PHC).

Mishra said she suspected the village might not have enough
population to qualify for a PHC, but she would nevertheless try. “What I can do
immediately is to send mobile health vans here,” she promised as the gathering
clapped their approval.

Mahabir Singh, however, pointed out to a more basic problem.
“They say dispensary cannot be opened because you don’t have electricity.”

That was a tough nut!

“BSES has recently surveyed this area. So we hope
electricity will come to this village in due course. I am not making any
promise, however, because it’s outside my jurisdiction,” said Mishra.

Inhabited mostly by small land holders who grow vegetables
to be sold at Azadpur Mandi and daily wagers, the village also suffers from a
lot of poverty.

So MCD’s Pandey introduced the villagers to the three kinds
of pension that the government provided: old-age, widow, and disability
pensions.

“This woman is old and is also widow. She must get
government pension,” Saroopji pointed out to a veiled woman called Sarwari.

“Do all agree that Sarwari should get the pension?” asked
Pandey.

The gathering shouted and nodded its agreement.

Sarwari, Jameela, Roshni, Batul, Qaneez, Sayeeda, Jareefan,
and Yasmine were the eight women who were finally identified as most deserving
of old-age and widow’s pension. Each of those women would have to submit their
ID card, an affidavit, and open their bank account in order to get the pension,
they were told.

Mahabir Singh assured the gathering that arranging the
documents would not be a problem.

Finally, a list of the tasks set by the Mohalla Sabha for
Mishra was read out again and the date of the next meeting was unanimously
decided as 12 September 2009.

“This Mohalla Sabha is not a one off affair. These meetings
will now happen regularly and madam councillor will be before you to give you a
progress report of the tasks that you have set for her,” said Kapil, Mishra’s
son.

Mishra later told reporters that she was committed to
conduct Mohalla Sabha meetings despite “the fact that a few MCD councillors and
officials have already started inveighing against this model of participatory
democracy because they won’t be able to make money in an environment of
transparency.”

(End of Matter)

About ‘Mohalla Sabha’ meetings

A Mohalla Sabha is the body of all adult citizens (i.e.
registered voters) of a smaller residential unit (an area, block, or colony) in
a municipal ward.

The meeting of a ‘Mohalla Sabha’ is an open meeting of local
citizens (i.e. members) with their ward councilor and some local MCD officials.

Every household of the area/block/colony is sent a written
notice of the meeting in advance.

The councillor tries to ensure the presence of MCD officials
who will be required to respond to citizens’ queries and complaints.

As the councilor and local MCD officials listen, the
citizens collectively discuss and debate their problems, suggest solutions, and
decide what facilities/public works they want. They citizens also decide who
among them is most deserving of government aid or social security benefits.

All decisions are taken either consensually or through
voting.

The citizens are able to directly question the councillor
and local MCD officials present.

The councillor and the officials, on their part, respond to
complaints and questions; they also offer clarifications and solutions. The
councillor also commits himself/herself to the things that he/she can do or
will try to do and points out to the things that are outside his/her
jurisdiction.

The councillor also makes a commitment that contractors will
be paid only after the local people have expressed satisfaction with the public
work in question.

The principle governing the Mohalla Sabha meeting is:
citizens will decide what they want and their representative (i.e. the
councillor) will merely carry out their will within the limits of his/her
jurisdiction, the law, and the availability of funds.

The minutes of the meeting, including the decisions taken,
are signed by each participant, and copies are sent to each household of the
area.

The participants also decide the time and place of the next
Mohalla Sabha meeting in which the councilor will present a report of the
progress on implementation of the decisions taken earlier.

In addition to the written notice of a Mohalla Sabha
meeting, the councilor also sends at least one letter a month to each household
of the area, informing them of the progress on the tasks that were set for him
in the last meeting.

Monday, May 22, 2017

I
have followed you closely through the media since your sacking from Kejriwal's
cabinet.

Having
worked with Kejriwal and having been associated with the Jan Lokpal Andolan of
2011, I am inclined to believe that he and his coterie is not incapable of
doing what you've accused them of having done.

However,
your belief as to when exactly skulduggery started in Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and
various people becoming aware of it at various times sounds naive to me.

I
am one of those people who believe that skulduggery started long before AAP
came into being.

The
last round of the Andolan itself in July-August 2012 -- setting the stage for
the announcement of a "political alternative" -- was part of a script
written by Kejriwal and his coterie, including two 'gentlemen' called Yogendra
Yadav and Prashant Bhushan.

(An
insider later termed it "Dharna fixing". Danish Raza, one of my
former colleagues, had written about the pre-decided script in Firstpost, days
before the last round was brought to an end. He told me then that Manish
Sisodia had tried to persuade him not to publish the story.)

And
then this whole concept of a "political alternative" was something of
a fraud.

I
think you are naive too in believing that if the AAP had not chucked out
Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav it would have prevented itself from sliding
into corruption.

I
think both Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav are much worse impostors than
Arvind Kejriwal has so far been.

Both
have claims to 'public wisdom' that flow not from an intimate connection with
society but from their self-image, self-righteousness, and 'eminence' that
comes with high profile lawyering and media work.

Both
seem to hold ideas of 'democracy' that are not repugnant to using one's
'eminence' to gain a lateral entry into positions of influence, such as the
positions they had in the AAP.

While
they got on well with Kejriwal they indulged in no less gangsterism and
covering up of skulduggery than what you have courageously admitted to have
been involved in.

Advocate
Ashok Agarwal of NGO Social Jurist was on record saying that Yadav would hush
him up whenever he tried to flag any wrong attributable to the movers and
shakers in the AAP.

Agarwal
later left the AAP in disgust.

Yadav
is an opportunist and carpetbagger of the lowliest variety who doesn't deserve
any sympathy.

What
he does deserve, in my opinion, is a very hard kick on his backside for his
involvement in enacting in July-August 2012 that pious "political
alternative" drama along with the Kejriwal gang.

Prashant
Bhushan is no less a sanctimonious crook.

This
billionaire lawyer masquerading as a bleeding heart 'liberal' and 'democrat' --
along with his supercilious father Shanti Bhushan -- wanted to have some
control over decision making in AAP in return for a donation of a couple of
crore of rupees.

How
does that square with the idea of 'Swaraj' that AAP fraudsters have been
selling to people to get their votes?

Bhushans,
in my view, are elitist, self-righteous and intolerant to the core.

Prashant
Bhushan's real constituency seems to have been some people in the US where he
goes thrice a year.﻿

So
beware of the two charlatans called Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

By pretending to be separate from and transcending 'culture', Judeo-Christianity and Islam qualify themselves to be deemed a fraud on humanity.I believe 'culture' is all human beings need to live their entire lives in all of their various dimensions, including ways to knowledge, wisdom and experience concerning what they might hold reverential or spiritual.Such ways to knowledge, wisdom and experience (sometimes expressed by such terms as Sampradaya, Panth, Bhakti/Gyan Marg, etc.) are inherent in what we call 'culture' and not separate from it.It's an open fraud and falsehood to posit some such thing as 'religion' as separate from and transcending 'culture'.No such thing as separate from and transcending 'culture' has any existence except as a collective pretence or fraud, which is what the whole concept of 'religion' is.By pretending to be separate from and transcending 'culture' even while hypocritically taking full advantage of the amazing openness (also known as ‘syncretism’) and the limitless range of knowledge, wisdom and experience of 'culture', Judeo-Christianity and Islam qualify themselves to be deemed a fraud.This gargantuan fraud on humanity that Judeo-Christianity and Islam represent is also known by the terms 'religion', ‘empire’, 'imperialism', etc.Judeo-Christianity and Islam constitute a fraud both (a) conceptually i.e. as a so called faith or set of prescribed ‘beliefs’ and (b) as praxis i.e. as a way of collective life based on some 'history' that itself has been woven from hearsay, myths, and plain falsehoods.Let's examine the concept first, whereby a dubious set of prescribed 'beliefs' - based on very dubious 'histories' - have ostensibly been made the entire basis of being a 'Christian' or a 'Muslim'.It's impossible for anyone ever to know what the other person actually believes in except by way of speculation based on the latter's behaviour.That's because we can never see or measure 'beliefs' to confirm their existence.'Beliefs' do not have a material form.You and I can never know for sure what our own fathers or wives or children actually 'believe' in except what we can infer from their words and deeds.In fact, people would be quite at sea if they were to try to examine and ascertain what they themselves believe in.Beliefs are, in fact, ever in flux, always changing with our experience of life.I may no longer believe what I believed last year, or last month, or last week.It's impossible, therefore, for anyone ever to be a 'Christian' or a 'Muslim' in a way that's even remotely ascertainable by a fellow 'Christian' or a 'Muslim' whose faith or set of ‘beliefs’, in turn, is similarly unascertainable.In other words, no supposed 'Christian' or 'Muslim' can ever be a 'Christian' or 'Muslim', based on a set of prescribed 'beliefs', except by 'professing' or 'claiming publicly' that he/she is or has become a 'Christian' or 'Muslim' OR by assuming outward signs or performing observances such as taking a Christian/Muslim name, going to churches/mosques, keeping distinct kinds of appearance, wearing crosses or distinct kinds of clothing, etc.That's why you see use of terms like "professing" and "bearing witness" in Judeo-Christianity and Islam in regard to assumption of 'Christian' and 'Muslim' labels.These terms simply mean a 'publicly made claim or declaration' that someone has assumed the 'Christian' or 'Muslim' label.Except this 'publicly made claim or declaration' that one is henceforth a 'Christian' or a 'Muslim', there is absolutely no other way to 'show' (or pretend) to the world that a written line or paragraph (based on Bible or Quran) is now one's faith or 'beliefs'. That's all becoming - or being ‘converted’ to being - a 'Christian' or a 'Muslim' means if you go by the flimsy claim that ‘Christians’ and ‘Muslims’ make up communities of ‘believers’.That's the pretence – to something as fluid and protean as ‘belief’ in what is prescribed by the ‘religion’ – that the frightful machinery of 'conversion' or 'proselytization' wants everyone to put on.So a Christian evangelist tacitly conveys to his prey: ‘Each of us lives this pretense that we all have a single faith or the same set of ‘beliefs’, even though we know that’s not possible. And I want you to join us in this pretense. If you decide to join us, we’ll perform a ritual on you. You will publicly declare that you have assumed the ‘Christian’ label. And you will have access to all the trappings and facilities that will mark you out as a ‘Christian.’Let’s take at this point the possible protestation of a ‘Christian’ who might contend that becoming or being a Christian also means having ‘conversion’ of the spirit or internal transformation.It’s easy to see here that the ‘Christian’ concept of ‘conversion’ of the spirit or internal transformation is as vague and unascertainable as the ‘beliefs’ that every ‘Christian’ supposedly holds merely by virtue of being labelled a ‘Christian’.What is ‘conversion’ of the spirit supposed to be?How can one ever determine whether or not somebody (or oneself) has undergone ‘conversion’ of the spirit?Of what kind? To what degree?Assuming for a moment that becoming or being ‘Christian’ is all about internal transformation, one may ask why bother with the ‘Christian’ label, the rituals and other outward signs?Why not just allow people to discover and explore for themselves the ‘knowledge’ about ‘Christianity’, thus opening themselves up to the supposed internal transformation if indeed there is such a thing?Why spend billions of dollars on organizing worldwide evangelization projects, train missionaries, collect enormous amounts of ethnological data about targeted communities, get into conflict with targeted communities and countries, accuse the same targeted communities of ‘persecution’, and abuse people and governments?How many so called ‘Christians’ in the world could honestly claim that they are themselves internally transformed?How could those claims be verified? Who would do that?How would those claims be different from similar claims made by people who are not ‘Christians’?Would non-Christians, especially the potential prey of the ‘Christian’ proselytizers, testify to any signs that ‘Christians’ are indeed ‘internally transformed’ people?Is the deep involvement of the Christian Church in Western colonization and imperialism, which enslaved, killed, maimed and oppressed millions, an indication of the supposed internal transformation of the ‘Christians’?Is the involvement of Christian priests in political intrigue, crime, and sexual exploitation an indication of the supposed internal transformation of the ‘Christians’?Is Western Christendom’s involvement in the 20th century in two massive imperial wars, which killed many millions and destroyed entire countries, an indication of the supposed internal transformation of the ‘Christians’?Is Western Christendom’s involvement over the decades up to the present time in numerous other violent conflicts, which caused widespread bloodshed and destruction, an indication of the internal transformation of the ‘Christians’?Is the enormous military might and nuclear bombs possessed by the countries in the Christendom, which can wipe out all life on earth, an indication of the supposed internal transformation of the ‘Christians’.Why do the ‘Christians’ have to rely on military might when they have been favoured with the blessing of internal transformation?Why don’t they just give up their lethal weapons and rely solely on this blessing of internal transformation for changing themselves and the rest of the world?What on earth do ‘Christian’ proselytizers have to show to their prey by way to their own ‘internal transformation’ except fancy rituals and Biblical verses?----

Monday, May 15, 2017

It's the best of times for the hunters of fake news and planted stories, those who are filing them, and the media outlets that are publishing them.

It's a time when the falsehood and fraud of a certain Aam Aadmi is fast unraveling and that Aam Aadmi has been left with hardly anything sensible to say.

Just glide through the Web to see what these fake news and planted stories are, who are the reporters filing them, and what are the outlets publishing them.

If your critical faculties vis-à-vis media are alive, you should be able to spot them.

These stories are always based on unnamed "sources" who usually blame certain people for certain developments, but the reporters never mean to include in their stories the version of the people blamed or to ask basic questions as to the narrative put forth by the unnamed "sources".

Doing the round for some days and attributed to unnamed "AAP sources" is a ridiculous story thatsays: "Arvind Kejriwal averted a midnight coup within AAP, engineered by Kumar Vishwas".

This fake news is based, as usual, on unnamed "AAP sources".

The ridiculous thing about this story is that the reporter and his/her media outlet is willing to believe "sources" from AAP that just a few days ago announced that not only the crisis brought about by a disaffected Kumar Vishwas had been resolved, but he had also been given the charge of Rajasthan as a peace offering.

In fact, the same AAP had announced at the time of resolution of 'Vishwas crisis' that party legislator Amanatullah Khan was made to resign from the political affairs committee precisely for the reason that he'd alleged that Vishwas was planning such a coup.

(It's like you announce on Monday that your differences with your spouse have been resolved. "We are again a happy family," you tweet with a smiling picture with your spouse. And on Wednesday, you secretly let it be known to the world that your spouse wanted to kill you and you had caught her/him loading the gun.)

The 'quiet', 'sober', 'unbiased', 'genteel', very 'English-Vinglish' media outlets that have published this transparently idiotic plant of a "news" are no other than the following.

1. The Wire, run by Siddharth Varadarajan.

Filed under the byline, 'The Wire Analysis', the story says: "According to AAP sources, one legislator called Vishwas on the phone in Kejriwal’s presence and was told by him that 34 MLAs were already on board to effect a change of leadership and only a couple more were needed to get a majority in the assembly."

https://thewire.in/135171/arvind-kejriwal-averted-midnight-coup-aap/

2. NDTV, run by Prannoy Roy.

Filed by Sonal Mehrotra Kapoor, the story says: "This version of events, as provided by AAP sources, has not been denied by the Chief Minister or his office so far."

Filed by Sharad Gupta, the story says: "By most accounts, the Kejriwal-Vishwas fracas could have potentially taken a turn for the worse. The AAP government would have fallen and Kejriwal could have been consigned to history."

Filed under the byline 'JKR Staff', the story says: "Days after the feud in Aam Aadmi Party appeared to have settled, new revelations suggest that Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal too was aware of an alleged bid to take over the party by Kumar Vishwas".

Filed under no byline, the story says: "Party sources say that they remain convinced that Mr Vishwas was incentivised to move against Mr Kejriwal by the BJP, which won the local elections in Delhi last month...".

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About Me

Delhi-based journalist, having worked for a business magazine and a news agency.
Also worked as a researcher on local democracy and right to information for an NGO.
Having left my latest employment at a magazine on governance, where I contributed to ideation and wrote on public policy from the perspective of common citizens, in September 2010, I am currently engaged in freelancing.
At the NGO, I participated in a rare experiment in bringing face to face the people and their representatives and officials in the municipal bodies. At the business magazine, I wrote on finance, economy, business, education, healthcare, etc. At the news agency, my longest employer so far, I worked on the business and economy desk, but also did some news reporting and writing. I believe we Indians are going through a very slow but sure democratic awakening, which is due to greater flow of information. We must sustain this process of awakening and help each other out of ignorance. This ignorance enslaves us to the elite that currently handles the levers of power.